Brett James is the self-titled debut album of American country music

Country music

Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...

 singer-songwriter Brett James

Brett James

Brett James Cornelius is an American singer, songwriter and record producer. Signed to Career Records as a solo artist in 1995, James charted three singles and released a self-titled debut album that year...

. It was released on September 12, 1995 via Arista Nashville

Arista Nashville

Arista Nashville is an American record label that is a wholly owned subsidiary of Sony Music Entertainment, operated under the Sony Music Nashville division. Founded in 1989, the label specializes in country music artists, including Alan Jackson, Brooks & Dunn, Brad Paisley and Carrie Underwood...

's Career Records division. The singles "Female Bonding", "If I Could See Love" and "Worth the Fall" all entered the Hot Country Songs

Hot Country Songs

Hot Country Songs is a chart published weekly by Billboard magazine in the United States.This 60-position chart lists the most popular country music songs, calculated weekly mostly by airplay and occasionally commercial sales...

 charts.

Critical reception

An uncredited review from Allmusic gave Brett James three stars out of five, calling it "a hard-rocking set of original songs that owe a great debt to honky tonk and traditional country." Richard McVey II of Country Standard Time

Country Standard Time

Country Standard Time is a website dedicated to country music and related genres such as Bluegrass and Rockabilly. It provides news and musical reviews pertaining to the genre. It was established in 1992 by Jeffrey B. Remz as a print magazine, which was first published only in New England but went...

described the album as "pretty much your standard country record with average material and average vocals that leads to an average review of an average artist."

Track listing

All songs written by Brett James; co-writers indicated in parentheses.

1. "Wake Up and Smell the Whiskey" (Dean Miller
   Dean Miller
   Roger Dean Miller, Jr. is an American country music artist, known professionally as Dean Miller. He is the son of Roger Miller, a country pop artist who had several hit singles between the 1960s and 1980s...
   
   ) – 2:52
2. "Many Tears Ago" (Hunter Armistead) – 3:53
3. "Worth the Fall" - 3:00
4. "She's Killin' Me" (Jennifer Kimball
   Jennifer Kimball
   Jennifer Kimball is a vocalist and songwriter who is notable for being part of the acclaimed folk duo The Story. She is a critically acclaimed singer-songwriter and has released two albums Veering from the Wave and Oh Hear Us....
   
   ) – 4:04
5. "If I Could See Love" (Steve Bogard) – 3:02
6. "Female Bonding" – 3:18
7. "Dark Side of the Moon" – 4:12
8. "Just Like We Never Happened" – 3:28
9. "Thrill of the Chase" – 2:43
10. "The Way That You Love" – 3:50
11. "Enjoy the Ride" – 3:37

Singles

Year	Single	Peak chart positions
		US Country Hot Country Songs Hot Country Songs is a chart published weekly by Billboard magazine in the United States.This 60-position chart lists the most popular country music songs, calculated weekly mostly by airplay and occasionally commercial sales...	CAN Country RPM (magazine) RPM was a Canadian music industry publication that featured song and album charts for Canada. The publication was founded by Walt Grealis in February 1964, supported through its existence by record label owner Stan Klees. RPM ceased publication in November 2000.RPM stood for "Records, Promotion,...
1995	"Female Bonding"	60	89
	"If I Could See Love"	68	—
	"Worth the Fall"	73	—
"—" denotes releases that did not chart

Personnel

• Bruce Bouton – steel guitar
  Steel guitar
  Steel guitar is a type of guitar or the method of playing the instrument. Developed in Hawaii in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a steel guitar is usually positioned horizontally; strings are plucked with one hand, while the other hand changes the pitch of one or more strings with the use...
  
  
• Paul Franklin
  Paul Franklin (musician)
  Paul Franklin is an American multi-instrumentalist, known mainly for his work as a steel guitarist. He began his career in the 1970s as a member of Barbara Mandrell's road band; in addition he toured with Mel Tillis and Jerry Reed. He has since become a prolific session musician in Nashville,...
  
   – steel guitar
• Rob Hajacos – fiddle
  Fiddle
  The term fiddle may refer to any bowed string musical instrument, most often the violin. It is also a colloquial term for the instrument used by players in all genres, including classical music...
  
  
• Dann Huff
  Dann Huff
  Dann Huff is an American musician, session musician, singer-songwriter and producer. For his work as a producer in the Country music genre he has won several awards including the Musician of the Year award in 2001 and 2004 at the Country Music Association Awards and the Producer of the Year award...
  
   – electric guitar
  Electric guitar
  An electric guitar is a guitar that uses the principle of direct electromagnetic induction to convert vibrations of its metal strings into electric audio signals. The signal generated by an electric guitar is too weak to drive a loudspeaker, so it is amplified before sending it to a loudspeaker...
  
  
• Jeff King – electric guitar
• Chris Leuzinger – electric guitar
• Chris Rodriguez
  Chris Rodriguez
  -Biography:Rodriguez was born on March 7, 1960, in Bronx New York, and moved to Nashville, becoming a veteran of the scene in the early 1990s. His debut album, Beggar's Paradise, was released by Sony in 1999, by which time he had collaborated on projects with country and CCM acts such as Amy Grant,...
  
   – background vocals
• Matt Rollings
  Matt Rollings
  Matt Rollings is an American composer, musician and record producer. He plays piano, organ, and keyboards.Known mainly for playing in Lyle Lovett's Large Band, he has worked with many artists, not all country...
  
   – piano
  Piano
  The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
  
  
• John Wesley Ryles
  John Wesley Ryles
  John Wesley Ryles is an American country music artist. He made his debut in 1968 with the single "Kay", a Top Ten hit on the Billboard Hot Country Singles charts, and the title track to his debut album for Columbia Records.Ryles later recorded one album, Reconsider Me, for the Plantation label,...
  
   – background vocals
• Judson Spence
  Judson Spence
  Judson Spence is an American pop music singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist based in Nashville, Tennessee. He originally gained fame when he released his eponymously titled debut solo effort on Atlantic Records in 1988...
  
   – background vocals
• Biff Watson – acoustic guitar
  Acoustic guitar
  An acoustic guitar is a guitar that uses only an acoustic sound board. The air in this cavity resonates with the vibrational modes of the string and at low frequencies, which depend on the size of the box, the chamber acts like a Helmholtz resonator, increasing or decreasing the volume of the sound...
  
  
• Dennis Wilson – background vocals
• Lonnie Wilson – drums
  Drum kit
  A drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....
  
  
• Glenn Worf
  Glenn Worf
  Glenn Worf is one of the premier Nashville session bassists. He was born in Dayton, Ohio but grew up in Madison, Wisconsin and has concentrated on the bass guitar since he was thirteen. He majored in music at the University of Wisconsin - Eau Claire. Inevitably his talents forced him to abandon the...
  
   – bass guitar
  Bass guitar
  The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....